Majority of Justices Skeptical of Federal Ban on Benefits to Same-Sex Spouses

[Mira]

Source: NYTimes

BREAKING NEWS Wednesday, March 27, 2013 12:39 PM EDT
Majority of Justices Skeptical of Federal Ban on Benefits to Same-Sex Spouses
A majority of the justices on Wednesday questioned the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, as the Supreme Court took up the volatile issue of same-sex marriage for a second day.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote on the divided court, joined the four liberals in posing skeptical questions to a lawyer defending the law, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the purposes of more than 1,000 federal laws and programs.
“The question is whether or not the federal government under a federalism system has the authority to regulate marriage,” Justice Kennedy said during oral arguments, suggesting that the question should be left to the states. He disagreed with the contention that the federal law simply created a single definition for federal purposes, noting that same-sex couples are not treated the same as other married couples. “It’s not really uniformity,” he said.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/us/supreme-court-defense-of-marriage-act.html?emc=na

[sharp_stick]

1. I'm kind of tired of the pundit

guessing game. I can't think of a single instance where they've ever gotten it wrong....

oh hang on

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47946647

I'd like to think they're right this time but I'll hold my celebration until the ruling comes out.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. That article is not punditry, it is reporting of the events. Journalism.

No prediction is made nor is any position taken by the reporters.

[sharp_stick]

3. Well no, it's not punditry

but if you remember the hoopla surrounding the Obamacare court case it was the absolute most out of the world possibility that could ever have been handed down by the court.

Jeffrey Toobin was so certain of the defeat of Obamacare that he'd given up reporting from the courtroom and simply went around telling everyone how great of a prognosticator he was.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Adam Liptak and Peter Baker wrote this. I'm not seeing the connection.

And this is in fact reporting from the courtroom.

[sharp_stick]

5. Sorry, I guess my original point wasn't clear

Sometimes I think I'm more clever than I actually am. I was just trying to make the point that until the court actually decides we have no idea what they're going to say. Until Obamacare was upheld by these exact same Justices everyone was absolutely positive that it was a goner, including me.

I hope DOMA disappears, I'd like to see it struck down but until they actual present the ruling I'm not going to be holding my breath or pretending that Jeffrey Toobin knows anything.

Right now there is a pile of breathless punditry flying around detailing the idea that DOMA is in trouble. Huffpost has no less than 5 stories on the front page detailing the idea that DOMA is on it's deathbed.

Last year at this exact same time the breathless reporting was on how Obamacare was in trouble. Huffpost had tons of stories on the front page about how the justices were just mocking the law and it was a sure thing that Obamacare was going down to ignominious defeat. They were so sure of this that the chattering class on the news channels were already predicting a much much tougher re-election fight for Obama because of the impending embarrassing repudiation of his signature first term accomplishment.

Then all of a sudden on June 28, 2012 every one of these pundits was shown to be totally and completely wrong. Thus resulting in the link which is one of the first actually reported events on the whole topic. All the chatter leading up to it was suddenly forgotten and forgiven and the pundits went right back to work pretending they can figure out what's going to happen before it happens. I remember mocking Jeffrey Toobin on Twitter after the actual ruling came down, it was priceless.